That `Mask' Man? It's Jamie Kennedy

NAMES & FACES

The Actor Hopes The Sequel To The Jim Carrey Film Will Boost His Already-thriving Career To The Next Level.

October 30, 2004|By Roger Moore, Sentinel Movie Critic

Jamie Kennedy is not waiting for that "big break." He already has had a few of those. Kennedy, 34, is best known for the Scream movies and his prank-pulling, disguise-wearing Jamie Kennedy Experiment TV series, which ran for three seasons on the WB.

"Still bummed that's gone, but I have a couple of other pilots I am putting together," he says.

He's looking "for that one movie, that one thing, that takes me to the next level," he says. He's hoping that will be Son of the Mask, the sequel to the hit that sent Jim Carrey into the stratosphere in 1994.

Son of the Mask prompted the producers of this year's ShowEast movie theater owners convention in Orlando to name Kennedy "Comedy Star of Tomorrow" this week, even though he has been in "the business" for 15 years.

"It's a great chance to come out, meet the exhibitors, the people who show your movies, see what they like and don't like," he says. "You need to press the flesh, because they need to know what you're about and that you're going to do everything you can to get people to come to their theaters."

The Mask sequel is a transitional role for Kennedy.

"I play my first dad ever, a straight man," he says, albeit a dad who fathers a baby while under the influence of the mischievous mask, a prop that turns anyone who wears it into a human cartoon. "I don't have to play nutballs all the time."

Still, he has his "human cartoon" moments.

"I had to wear all this prosthetic facial stuff, and of course they do stuff to `animate' you with the mask," he says. He also had to work with a dog and a baby.

"And babies can only work six hours a day -- lazy," Kennedy says, laughing.

Plus, there were the animated versions of the dog and the infant in the finished film.

"Acting to a tennis ball [put in place to focus the actor on an effect that will be added later] is not easy. You're supposed to be full of love or fear for your child. And all you see is Penn 7!"